


Waste

by Glare



Series: The Other Side of Paradise [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Dubious Consent, M/M, Post-Mustafar AU, Sexual Content, Suitless Vader, Tatooine Folklore I Literally Made Up, Vaderwan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-26 14:49:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9906779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glare/pseuds/Glare
Summary: Anyone born of Tatooine knows better than to wander too far into the Wastes. It is a savage, inhospitable place: a land of dragons and raiders and ghosts. Farmers dare not set down roots, travelers dare not pass through its heart. It is cursed land, long-ago scorned by the gods of their people. Anyone born of Tatooine knows that should you stay too long, the Wastes will show you your past, your failures, your regrets. You will see what was and what could have been and what never will be. Those hills can drive a man mad.It is there that he finds Obi-Wan Kenobi, at last.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MissLearn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissLearn/gifts).



> This should technically go with the rest of my tumblr prompt fills, but I liked it too much. So here's a little one-shot I wrote for the prompt "a book infested with ghosts".

Anyone born of Tatooine knows better than to wander too far into the Wastes. It is a savage, inhospitable place: a land of dragons and raiders and ghosts. Farmers dare not set down roots, travelers dare not pass through its heart. It is cursed land, long-ago scorned by the gods of their people. Anyone born of Tatooine knows that should you stay too long, the Wastes will show you your past, your failures, your regrets. You will see what was and what could have been and what never will be. Those hills can drive a man mad.

It is there that he finds Obi-Wan Kenobi, at last.

Years of searching have led him to this moment. He has slaughtered Jedi, sacked Temples, turned entire planets inside out in his pursuit of the man he had once called Master. Now he approaches, following the glow of the man’s Light through the Waste. His own presence is dimmed, masked by the shielding he’s mastered in the time since their parting, lest he alert Kenobi to his presence. If his has his way, this will be swift. His skills as a swordsman have grown under Sidious’ tutelage, and there is something satisfying at the thought of finally besting his old mentor. He’d left his signature mask behind in his transport, as there is little risk of anyone seeing his face so far out into the desert; he’s going to look Obi-Wan in the eye when he strikes him down.

Yet, when he crosses the next rise, it quickly becomes apparent that things will not be quite as simple as he had previously thought. At the base of the hill is a herd of bantha, grazing on the meager plant life that the Wastes are able to support. They snuffle and groan, their attention drawn when one of Vader’s boots knocks against a stone buried in the sand and sends it careening down the hill.  Among them, cross-legged in meditation, is Obi-Wan himself.

Obi-Wan is older now than he was that final day on Mustafar, a fact that is more surprising than it rightfully should be. His hair and his beard are more grey than red, his face lined and worn by the desert. The twin suns, just beginning to dip below the horizon, have managed to tan the man’s stubbornly space-pale skin, bringing out freckles on his shoulders and the bridge of his nose. Blue eyes, familiar yet so very different, follow the trajectory of the displaced stone until they settle on Vader. There is recognition there, but not comprehension. Not enough for the enormity of this situation.

A brilliant smile blooms on his face. “Anakin!” He calls, pushing himself to his feet. The process is considerably slower than it had once been, his joints aged beyond his years by the abuses of war. “I was wondering when you would come visit me.”

The smile he wears, the vacancy of his eyes—there is something unsettling about it all. No one knows better than Obi-Wan Kenobi the monster that Anakin Skywalker has become. He alone knows the face hidden behind the cold mask presented to the rest of the galaxy, and he alone knows the name long-shed in favor of his new moniker. A thought flickers across Vader’s mind of the gossip he’d heard passing through Mos Eisley. Old Ben Kenobi, the Wizard of the Wastes.

 _Those hills can drive a man mad_ , the voice of a nine year old slave boy murmurs in his ear.

“It’s been some time since you last visited,” Kenobi continues, and there’s a flicker of something injured in his expression. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever come back.”

A mirage. That’s all he is, or at least, all Obi-Wan believes him to be. This would be the perfect time to strike the man down. He would never see it coming. Never suspect. Yet something stays his hand, and he finds himself climbing down the hill to meet Kenobi and his herd at its base.

“I was just about to take the bantha back to the homestead, but you’re welcome to join us.”

Even addled and desert-mad, Obi-Wan has still retained his gift for the Force. It takes but a brush of his mind, his will, to get the herd moving. Vader tracks along beside him as they make their way through the Waste, listening as the man babbles on about his life here in the desert, filling him in on the happenings since his mirage’s last visit. It’s mostly uneventful: the birth of a new calf, a raid by the sand people, repair of the vaporators. “Qui-Gon comes around quite often, these days,” he says, suddenly solemn. “Sometimes I think I see… see Satine. She never lingers, though; not the way you and Qui-Gon do.”

Vader wonders how long the ghost of Anakin Skywalker has been haunting his old mentor. How long had it taken for the curse of the Waste to take its toll?

Seeing Kenobi’s homestead puts into perspective how the man could have so quickly slipped from the war hero Vader spent years of his life fighting beside to the mad old man whispered about in the canteens of Mos Eisley. The stables are well-maintained, but even the descent of night can hide that everything else on the land seems just this side of dilapidated. Obi-Wan doesn’t seem particularly disturbed by this fact, nor does he comment when Vader hesitates in the doorway of the man’s home. He just ushers the man in, as though inviting the ghosts of his past in for tea is just another part of his average day.

“I’m sorry it’s a bit of a mess,” Obi-Wan mutters, the light flush to his cheeks illuminated only by the light of the three moons as he scurried around ahead of Vader to try and pick up the space. “It’s been rather—rather difficult to keep things tidy since you stopped visiting.”

As far as homes go, Kenobi’s is spartan in the way one might expect from a former Jedi. Beyond the standard necessities for desert living, there is very little to distinguish it from any other homestead. There’s a small living space, a dining table, and a cot pushed into one corner. In fact, beyond a mildly alarming number of empty bottles of alcohol, the only real unique piece in the home is a wooden chest near the bed, intricately carved and securely locked. Vader’s curious as to its contents, but Obi-Wan directs him to a chair at the dining table before he begins shuffling around in the kitchen to prepare tea and something for an evening meal.

Laying on the surface of the table is a familiar sight: Obi-Wan’s journal. An integral part of his former Master’s life, the journal had rarely stayed far from the man’s side Even during the chaos of wartime, the little book could often be found tucked into the folds of the Kenobi’s robes, ready to be pulled out and the dealings of the day scribbled down whenever he could find the time. Vader had mocked him for his incessant record-keeping, but there was always something soothing about settling down beside the man, listening to the scratch of ink against flimsi and simply unwinding after the stress of another day on the battlefield.

Kenobi returns with two cups of what Vader _presumes_ to be tea and bowls of what he _knows_ to be stew. Little goes to waste in Tatooines’s harsh climate, and the small creatures that lurk in the nooks and crannies of its land had fed him often enough in his youth that he recognizes their pungent aroma even now. The stew is barely edible, though this he was expecting. Kenobi never had any kind of gift in the kitchen, often relying on Anakin to keep them both fed when away from the refractory of the Jedi Temple. The tea, though, is quite possibly the worst thing he’s ever tasted. There’s something wrong with the filter of the vaporator the water had been collected from, leaving a salty, metallic taste that makes him cringe.

The flavor doesn’t seem to bother his old mentor, who drags his old journal closer and begins the ritual of recording the day’s events in its pages. He mumbles to himself as he writes, pausing intermittently to glance up at Vader and make sure the man is still there. In honesty, the Sith isn’t intending to move anytime soon, as he’s still not quite sure what he’s supposed to do now.

He’d come to this planet with the intention of striking down his former Master. Obi-Wan Kenobi, Grand General of the Republic, the Negotiator, Sith Killer—a dozen titles worn by a man Vader thought himself to hate. But this Kenobi that sits before him? He is none of those things; as much a ghost of his former self as the specters that visit him. The thought of killing him now leaves a sour taste in his mouth.

“I missed you,” Kenobi says quietly, drawing Vader from his introspection. He’s set the journal aside, turned the full focus of his attention on the younger man. The Apprentice feels himself swallow reflexively at the intensity of his expression, very nearly flinches when one of Obi-Wan’s hands covers his own. The calluses on his palm are unfamiliar now, wear from a lightsaber’s hilt replaced with the evidence of physical labor. “I often find myself wondering what our life might have been like if you’d left the Order when you’d considered it as a padawan. Would the war have still come to pass without our influence? Would things have been different between us? Would I have still… loved you?

“I don’t think I ever told you,” he confesses, “but I would have left with you. I would have followed wherever you led. Stars, Anakin, why didn’t I just tell you?”

Vader doesn’t dare speak, doesn’t dare shatter this illusion, but he can’t hear any more. He can’t sit here and listen to Kenobi speak truths he’d considered impossible, and know that he’d thrown this man’s loyalty back in his face. He’d torn Obi-Wan’s world to pieces, reduced him to nothing but this broken, desert creature in return for his unconditional love.

Leaning over the table, he is perhaps a bit forceful when he presses his lips to Kenobi’s. The man chokes, clearly intending to pull away, but Vader sinks one hand into the man’s hair to cut off his escape. When it becomes apparent that he isn’t going to let go, Obi-Wan allows himself to return the kiss. Hesitant, at first, but gaining confidence with the longer the contact continues, even daring to nip at Vader’s lower lip when the younger man pulls away to catch his breath.

They disentangle, Vader pushing out of his chair to tug Kenobi to his feet and back him toward the small cot in the corner. He strips the man’s clothing off as they go, his own coming undone under Obi-Wan’s persistent hand. While the older man’s nakedness is something Vader seen a hundred times before, it all seems new in this context: sprawled out on the thin blanket of the cot, pressed against Vader’s own. A small part of him notices that the man has lost weight since their separation—a consequence of live on Tatooine.

“Anakin, please,” Obi-Wan gasps. “Take me.”

He shouldn’t, he knows he shouldn’t, and yet he does. He does, because Obi-Wan begs and pleads, a desperation in his voice that makes Vader think he might break if he doesn’t give this. This one thing, this one comfort, this one desire.

They have nothing but spit and the fluid that beads on the tips of their cocks, everything else too precious to be wasted on something as superfluous as sex. It’s not nearly enough to slick the way, to make the press of Vader into him anywhere close to comfortable, but he suspects that isn’t what Obi-Wan wants, anyways. His fingers dig into Vader’s shoulders when the younger man is finally seated inside him, eyes scrunched with pain.

“Move,” he hisses between clenched teeth.

Vader does, slowly. Agonizingly so, despite Obi-Wan’s demand for something harder. It may be what he wants, but it’s not what he needs. He knows this and leans down, claiming the man’s lips in a tender kiss as he rocks against him. There in that moment, there is no Light and no Dark; no Jedi, nor Sith. It’s just him, just Obi-Wan, connected in a way the galaxy and fate had long denied them.

Tears stream down the older man’s face as Vader wrings orgasm from him, spattering their stomachs and chests with the evidence of his pleasure. The younger is quick to follow, spilling within Kenobi’s body, barely able to stop himself from collapsing atop the man in the aftershocks. Both hiss when he pulls free; there is blood on the sheets. Nothing to be done about it now, however.

He goes willingly when Obi-Wan pulls him down, curls against the man’s chest and listens to the rhythm of his heart. Once, so long ago now, it had beat in time with Vader’s own. Out on the battlefield, tied together by the Force, they’d moved and thought and breathed as one. Kenobi’s heart still beats to that rhythm; it is Vader’s own that has gone astray. He gave his heart to another, and another, and another. To all, it seems, but this one man, whose own still belongs solely to the brother that forsook him.

“Must you go?” Obi-Wan asks. Vader doesn’t dare move when the man reaches out, cupping his face with a shaking hand and brushing away a tear that’s escaped him despite his best efforts. “Yes, I suppose you must,” he sighs, a soft smile on his face. There is sadness in his eyes, like a wound that will never heal. “You were always destined for greater things than the love of this silly old man.”

Kenobi leans down, pressing one last, lingering kiss to Vader’s lips, and it feels like something inside of him breaks. The heart he’d thought long burned from his chest cracks, shatters to pieces on the sandy floor of the small hut. He wants to sob; to fall to his knees and beg forgiveness; to remain curled into the man’s chest until dawn and Obi-Wan realizes that this isn’t a mirage created by the desert. But he can’t.

Already he can feel his Master’s impatience prodding at the shields he’s keeping so high, desiring a report Vader doesn’t want to give. To linger further would tempt fate—something he’s long since learned better than to try. If his Master were to send someone out after him, they could find Obi-Wan. They could find him, and kill him, and the last piece of Anakin Skywalker’s wretched, broken heart would die too. He can’t allow that.

So he pulls away, despite the way every part of him screams in protest. Kenobi settles back against the sheets, eyes already fluttering closed with his exhaustion, and Vader tucks the thin blanket around the man’s shoulders before he rises from the cot to collect his scattered clothing. Slipping from the home like the mirage he’s pretended to be, the touch of Obi-Wan’s journal burns against the skin of his chest like a brand. Worn leather and brittle pages, their history written down in thousands of words, stolen from its place on the man’s small dining table and tucked away within his robes. It had been Kenobi’s constant companion during the trials of war and his lonely days in the Waste. Now it will be a reminder of everything waiting when Vader is finished atoning for the destruction he’s wrought.

“I love you, too,” he says to the wind before he boards his transport back to the _Vengeance,_ sending a prayer to the old gods of the suns and sand that his confession will be carried safely back to whom it belongs.


End file.
